Hungry enough to eat an ox?

Most times we settled for a turkey

I owe my existence to a mining engineer. Without Bill’s passion for food, as well as rare minerals, I wouldn’t be blogging today. It was Bill who took his daughter Sharon, my alter-ego,  under his formidable wing and taught her to cook.

Sundays would see Bill in his tiny, lemon-hued 1950s kitchen pouring over one of his many fish-splattered and chocolate-speckled cook books. Sharon was there, too, in her pleated skirt with her blouse hanging out, helping him find the canned pineapple bits, the dented metal flour canister, or the bulbs of golden garlic.

They whipped up savory delicacies like Hawaiian chicken with water chestnuts on a bed of wild rice. Or a hearty, tender slab of beef in a robe of mushrooms, herbs and walnuts, all entombed in flaky pastry.

Clementine in the Kitchen

But their favorite by a long shot was a recipe hidden in a slender, cloth-bound dark turquoise book called Clémentine in the Kitchen. Penned in 1943 by Phineas Beck, the book chronicles the cooking lives of an American family in France in the 1930s, under the loving guidance of their chef Clémentine. When war broke out in Europe in 1939, they upped and returned home, but not without taking Clémentine with them. The chapters read like blog posts… short, homey, and peppered with recipes and drawings. Maybe you can find a copy in the library or on Abe Books? Fun to read and an open window on a dangerous time!

The best of these recipes was Clementine’s Hochepot de Queue de Boeuf. For those of you who don’t speak French, this brings me back to the title of my post. If you’re not so hungry you could eat an ox, I bet you could handle a taste of its tail. Believe me, once you’ve had a few bites, you won’t stop until every last morsel has gone down the red brae (Bill’s expression… throat).

It’s a tail, of course… from a beef cow

Ideally, Bill and Sharon would cook up this ox tail stew over several days. In the 1950s the concept of fast food had yet to arrive! They’d start by soaking the tail joints overnight and would continue in the morning with a slow roast over low heat. The stock was strained, then chilled in the fridge over night. The following day the meat would be dressed, baked again, and served with a flourish.

It was such a treat, that Sharon tried preparing this dish on her own for a party of her friends years later, at university. In a rush, as are most students, she didn’t leave it enough time. Sadly the larger pieces didn’t thank her for it.

If you too would like to try your hand at it, and hopefully arrive at a better result than Sharon did her first time out solo, here’s Clémentine’s recipe. It features simple, fresh ingredients, lovingly prepared.

See the flames? Awesome!

Clémentine’s Hochepot de Queue de Boeuf
[AKA Ox Tail Stew]

Soak an oxtail cut in joints in cool water for at least 2 hours, wipe dry with a clean cloth, and brown in butter with 4 onions and 3 carrots, coarsely chopped. [I’ve been known to dredge them, before browning, in flour seasoned with lots of paprika (¼ cup flour, 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon paprika). Clémentine would shudder at the thought. Give it enough time and flour isn't necessary.]

When the meat is browned add 2 cloves crushed garlic. Cover for 2 min. Add 3 tablespoons of brandy. Light it and let it burn. Add half a bottle dry white wine and enough bouillon so that the meat bathes in liquid. Add pepper and a bouquet garni. Cook slowly, lid off, 3 hours. [I make this dish the day before up to this point. I put the meat into a bowl and store it separately from the stock in the fridge overnight.]

The next day,  remove the fat from the stock, then reheat and strain the liquid.

In a casserole, saute in butter a half pound tiny mushrooms, a good handful of diced bacon and a dozen tiny onions, peeled.

Add the meat and the strained and defatted stock to the casserole, just enough to cover. Save the rest for a soup dish another day. Cover and cook for one hour more in a slow oven. The meat should be soft and the sauce unctuous.

Note below that Gourmet Magazine was going strong in 1943. Bon Appétit!

From Clémentine in the Kitchen, by Phineas Beck
Hastings House, Publishers, New York, 1943

Published in cooperation with Gourmet Magazine

Above: Our hochepot after the first day. Below: Dinner on day 2.

Dinner was even more delicious than Sharon remembered. Cooking the dish over 2 days made it effortless. You won’t be sorry you tried it!

Yackity’s Life-Ever-Lasting Tibetan Pie

Recipe for eternal youth

My last time out I told you the tale of how Yackity came to live on a farm in Canada. It was a fine life, and Yackity learned how to grow many kinds of foods and make lots of delicious and healthy meals. But there was one dish that her mother had made for her which was always a favorite.

We can imagine inhabitants of Shangri-La baking Yackity’s one-dish dinner for their pampered guests. Its healthful ingredients likely held the key to their long lives!

Yackity shared her recipe with me and I pass it on to you today. If you have trouble finding the ingredients in your area, feel free to make substitutions. This recipe is made to be tampered with.

It would be a shame if you had to toss the yak out of Yackity’s pie. But I realize not everybody is as fortunate as we are to have a yak farm near by. You can always substitute some other lean red meat… emu, beefalo, even pork (surprisingly lean these days). Try to stay away from beef if you can.

Check out this chart, and make up your own minds. See how the calories, cholesterol and fat are all so much lower for yak compared with beef?

4 oz. Meat Comparison Yak Beef Beefalo Pork Chicken Calories 154 300.71 212.53 195.58 220.09 Cholesterol 49mg 89.31mg 65.57mg 89.31mg 93.84mg Fats 6.10g 19.42g 7.14g 6.84g 8.69g Protein 24.7g 29.3g 34.6g 31.4g 33.2g Yak nutrition analysis provided by Midwest Laboratories, Inc., a USDA-Accredited Lab. All beef, beefalo, pork and chicken analysis provided by USDA.

Without any more fuss, here’s how to bake this pie.

Yackity’s Tibetan Pie

You need

• 2 pounds sweet potatoes (I used a large purple-skinned sweet potato, which is white inside – yummy! Tibetans grow lots of potatoes, so use whatever kind you like.)
• 2 tablespoons real butter (Yaks are a source of milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter for Tibetans)
• 1/4 cup milk (I always use skim)
• 1/4 cup raw barley (very Tibetan)
• 1 onion, diced (I used a leek – kids like the mild flavor)
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 1 pound ground yak
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (not very Tibetan, but it’s all I had…)
• 1 tablespoon flour
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup crumbled goats cheese (yak cheese isn’t commonly available…)

Get ready

1) Scrub the potato and slice it into one-inch pieces. Boil until soft, then rinse in cold water. Take the skins off and mash with butter and a little milk. Salt and pepper to taste.

2) Add the raw barley to 1 cup boiling water in a small pan on the stove.  Cover and simmer 30 minutes or till tender. Add a 1/4 teaspoon salt the last 5 minutes.

3) Peel and chop the carrot and garlic.

4) Spray an oven-proof deep pie dish with oil.

Get set

1) Heat the olive oil in a fry pan. Add the carrot and cook until soft. Add onion and garlic, and stir until onion gets limp. Remove to a plate.

2) Add more oil to the pan, then add the yak and  cook on medium heat until brown.

3) Add cooked barley and flour. Put  the cooked veggies back in the pan. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 5-10 minutes, or until thickened.

Go!

1) Put the meat filling into the deep dish, then top with the mashed potatoes.

2) Crumble the cheese over the potato crust. At this point you can refrigerate to serve later.

3) To reheat, put the pie into a 350F oven. When the topping is brown and bubbly, the pie should be hot enough to serve – about 35 minutes.

If you can find yak meat where you live, what are you waiting for? Buy some. It’s good for you and so delicious. Even a kid would like this pie. The sweet potato and barley lend a delicate flavor to a dish already raised out of the ordinary with the unusual meat.

Yackity is ready now to say goodbye. But before she leaves you, she would like to tell you one other fascinating factoid: Chewbacca and the Wolf Man both wore costumes made of yak hair. How cool is that?

Related link

Yackity’s Yaks – Read part I of this amazing tale and learn more about the biology of these wonderful animals.

Yackity’s Yaks

Let me tell you the strange tale of how a Sherpa lass called Yackity ended up on a ranch far from home and got to the meat of the matter.

One evening, while Yackity fed her animals their usual treat of puffed maize, a cruel wind picked her up and blew her far away from her haven in the Tibetan mountains.

When Yackity came down to earth again, she found herself all alone in a land that reminded her of home.  Pine trees, grassy fields,  worn rocky outcrops, and many bright flowers felt familiar.

But other things looked strange. Tall whispery trees bent their branches down to a small stream that flowed past their roots. Prickly bushes along the fences drooped from the weight of red berries. Black birds with a blood-red patch on their wings flitted among the reeds.

“Where am I,” Yackity wondered aloud. As she looked around, she was surprised to see an old man walking toward her. What surprised her was his age. Where Yackity had come from, people retained their youth right up to their time of passing. Yet this old fellow seemed fit and spry… running through the fields, shouting “Clara!  Micheline! Jasper!”

“Hello there!” Yackity waved, finding she could magically speak to the old man in his own language. “Who are you calling? And where am I?” she asked.

“You’re on one of the few Yak ranches in Canada,” the man replied. He spread his arms. “I was calling the animals so you could meet them. That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it?” He smiled. “My yaks roam across 750 acres of  lush vegetation here. They  nibble on willow when they are ill and feast on raspberries when they are pregnant. They need only half the food a cow eats and find most of it for themselves. I give them some hay in winter, though. Winters are cold here, but their shaggy hair and extraordinary body chemistry equip yaks to thrive without much shelter, regardless of the weather.”

“What’s so special about their body chemistry?” Yackity asked. “I kept yaks myself in my homeland and never heard of  any super powers…”

Jasper, the hardy yak

“I could yack about that forever!” exclaimed the old man. “The main thing is their humungous red blood cells. When it’s cold, yaks breathe slowly, storing oxygen in them. When it’s hot they just breathe faster. Their body fat differs completely from other animals as a result.”

“That’s odd,” Yackity went. “The only meat I’ve ever eaten is yak. It doesn’t have much fat at all.”

“That’s right” said the ranch owner. “Yak meat IS lean. It has just half the calories of beef, the meat people eat most often here abouts. Yak meat has one-third less saturated fats, the nasty ones, and one-third more of the omega 3s and linoleic fatty acids, the ones that are good for us.”

“Oh,” said Yackity, speechless for once. “What I like,” said Yackity, licking her lips at the thought, ” is the delicate juicy flavor. We say yak meat is what keeps us Tibetans limber enough to climb the mountains until we’re well and truly old. If you have some around, I’ll make you my favorite dish for you!”

The old man had a large supply of it in his freezer.  Tune in next week to learn how Yackity made her Tibetan pie.

To this day you can still find Yackity on the ranch in Canada,  thriving on yak meat and other treats from the land, while helping the old guy care for his animals.

Tibetan pie half undressed, so you can see what’s inside

Many thanks to Rosemary Kralik, for allowing me to post photos of her animals. Rosemary runs Tiraislin, a yak farm just west of Ottawa. She sells her meat from her farm and at the Ottawa Farmers Market. Her yak products are delicious and so good for you, too!

Related Link

Yackity’s Life-everlasting Tibetan Pie – A great recipe for Sherpa pie and some simple science facts about meat. Yak meat comes out on top in every way… a super meat!

Escargots and chocolate milk

Bon Appétit !

Escargot, if you don’t already know this, kiddies, is  French for snail. And that’s right, people eat them. In fact, many of best restaurants offer snails at high prices.

I personally knew one little girl who ordered escargots whenever she saw them on the menu, usually while we were driving in Quebec, Canada’s French province. She liked her snails with chocolate milk.

Servers everywhere shook their heads in wonder when she placed her order. On  one trip in particular she ate escargots so often we had to drive with the windows down. That’s because snails are most often served swimming in garlic butter. After a while, the air gets pretty rank.

The fact that we find escargots in Quebec is not a coincidence. The French eat 40,000 tonnes of snails each year. Most of these are served floating in hot melted butter. This method of cooking snails, however, undermines their nutritional goodness. Without the butter, snails are high in protein, low in fat.

In fact, snail pie is an option to combat hunger in Africa. Here’s why. Snail meat contains protein, fat (mainly polyunsaturated fatty acid, the good fat), iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, zinc, and vitamins A, B6, B12, K and folate. It also contains the amino acids arginine and lysine at higher levels than in whole egg. Finally, it contains healthy essential fatty acids like linoleic and linolenic acids. The high-protein, low-fat content of snail meat makes it a healthy alternative food. How about that!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

The things is: they’re ugly little critters!

But we should get over it and learn to love these nutritious  power houses.

After all, snails have been eaten as food since at least ancient Roman times. Apicius, the author of the oldest surviving cookbook known (it dates from the time of Jesus), gives us a recipe for snails. He preferred his snails to be fattened up on milk and then lightly sautéed. Snails are wildly popular in many countries, if not so much in English Canada and the USA. Restaurants internationally serve about 1 billion snails annually.

But let’s lower the butter content a tad. Here’s a great recipe we can try, for example, from Escargot Passion. It’s not entirely butter-free, but it IS made with less butter than usual. It’s said to be very easy.

 

Low-fat escargots, with goat cheese stuffing 

Here are the proportions for 48 snails, previously cooked in court bouillon. The recipe makes eight servings of six escargots each.

Ingredients

• 200 g of goat cheese ( or greek feta )
• 50 g of butter
• 2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
• salt to taste
• optional – flavor with tarragon, anise,  or crushed mustard seed. I used tarragon.

See the little cup that holds the snail shells? Functional design!

You need

• 48 empty snail shells
• 8 oven-safe snail plates with places for 6 snails
• 8 snail forks
• 8 snail tongs (optional, if you’re handy enough with your fingers)
• Whole wheat baguette

How to prepare

• Knead the ingredients together until you have a smooth paste.
• In each empty shell, place a little of this paste. Then push a cooked escargot into the shell. Fill the remaining space in the shell completely and smoothly with the paste. Use  5 grams for each shell (a teaspoon). Arrange the snails six to a plate.
• Put the plates in the oven (200°C or 400°F) just long enough to melt the butter.
• Serve immediately. Be careful because the plates and snails are hot. Pick the snails  out of their shells with a special little fork. Sop up the melted paste  with pieces of the whole wheat baguette.

Tip: You can actually buy snails ready to go in cans and avoid the worst part of snail cooking – the cleaning of the live little critters. If you’re interested in this aspect of snail cuisine, see Escargot Passion in the last paragraph or read these instructions  for finding, cleaning and cooking snails from your own garden.

So don’t be shy… go ahead and try this recipe. We all know snails are what little boys are made of (along with puppy dogs’ tails)… so they must be pretty good. The hardest part is finding the canned and cooked snails, but you can do it. Let me know how you like the recipe?

There’s a nutritional powerhouse within that lovely shell

And little lambs eat ivy!

A kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?

Maybe before you go popping just any old ivy into your mouth, you should learn a little about what you’re eating. What’s good for lambs  and baby goats, otherwise known as kids, may not be so good for kids of the human variety.

One kind of ivy, though, ground ivy in particular, is a plant people have been eating for nearly ever. Who knew!

Ground ivy – recognize this plant?

Where I live, ground ivy runs all through our lawns… a real pest! Its cousin is mint, a plant you probably know a lot more about than ground ivy. But just because ground ivy has a well-known relative doesn’t mean it’s safe to eat. The problem is: with plants, you can’t just go eating the whole thing willy nilly. Parts of it  may be tasty, as well as good for what ails you. In fact for thousands of years, people used parts of ground ivy as medicine, to treat eye ailments, lung congestion and inflammation diseases. But other parts could be poisonous or even lethal, like the leaves of rhubarb are. You have to know the wild plants you eat. If you know ground ivy, here’s an interesting recipe using the leaves. If you haven’t studied wild plants carefully, don’t take a chance.

Sweaters!

But getting back to sheep and goats… “I love ewe,” say the sheep in my photo, as they knit sweaters for their young ones. I made this counting-sheep-to-get-to-sleep quilt using free-motion machine stitching. It’s for our own young one, expected to be making an appearance in the family in June. Surprisingly, right here on WordPress, I found evidence that sheep do indeed wear sweaters! Isn’t life grand?

Now let’s get cooking!

For me, the real prize we get from sheep and goats is cheese made from their milk. SOOOO good! If you see goat or sheep cheese at a farmers market or at the local cheese shop, snap it up. You will be  knocked over by the deliciousness of it.

Here is a recipe for a cheese strata using goat cheese with  only 22% fat. That’s a pretty-low-fat cheese. I took this dish to a party last week and the guests raved over it! I think you will too.

Baaaaa! Goat cheese layered with whole wheat croissants

A layered approach to a goat cheese strata

1 soft-ripened goat cheese brie (made from pasteurized  goat milk, about 165 grams, put  in freezer for 30 minutes)
3 large whole-wheat croissants
6 oz thin asparagus, with tough stems broken off and sliced in half then quartered
2 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon in total of herbes de Provence (rosemary, thyme, and oregano)
3 0r 4 ounces of smoked ham, chopped
1 1/2 cups skim milk
4 eggs
2 teaspoons mustard
1/4 tsp salt

Plunge asparagus in boiling salted water and cook for 2 minutes. Drain and plunge into cold water. Then drain and pat dry.

Slice each croissant in half. Line a well-oiled 1 1/2-litre oven-proof baking dish with three or four of the slices. Break the remaining slices into bite-sized pieces and reserve.

Slice the heavy rind off the well-chilled brie. Then thinly slice the brie and arrange on the croissant slices.

Sprinkle with half the tarragon and herbs mixture. Spread half the ham and asparagus over the herbs. Top with the croissant pieces and press down hard. Finish with the remaining ham, asparagus, and herbs on top.

Wisk the eggs with the mustard, milk and salt. Gradually pour the liquid evenly over the layered croissants until it’s absorbed. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F. Remove the plastic wrap and put the cold strata in the oven. Cover with a piece of tin foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Then uncover and continue baking for 30 minutes more, or until the strata is puffed and golden and the centre seems set when jiggled. Let strata sit for 10 minutes before serving.

This is a wonderful make-ahead dish for a crowd. The fresh flavors make this a taste sensation that can even be enjoyed by kids.

Before you leave me now, why not check out the song I’ve used to introduce both my last post and this one, Mairzy Doats… If you haven’t heard this crazy ditty before and have no idea what the heck I am talking about, be sure to click through to You tube and listen up…  Lala-lala la. It makes for nice background music to your healthy dinner made from oats, goat cheese, or even ground ivy. Enjoy!

Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy….
A kid’ll eat ivy too, wooden shoe?

“Eat more leaves,” says Pollan

Eat more leaves

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Thank you, Michael Pollan, for this simple advice. You’ve researched the heck out of the Western diet to show us it’s this easy to eat for better health. We just need to stop eating packaged food… especially those with packages boasting health benefits. And although you want us to eat more plants, you don’t make us give up on meat completely. Thank goodness!

Although I was already leery of processed foods, I’ll have no trouble now giving them up as often as I can… especially any of those with fructose near the top of the ingredient list. Who knew it was even worse for us than glucose, the sugar our bodies burn for energy? And who knew refined white flour was the first fast food? Apparently, processing makes the starch molecules in flour more easily digestible into glucose… that’s right, the fuel our bodies burn for energy. Our bodies were never built to handle such a flood of glucose all at once.

I’ll have more trouble with your advice to swap meat for leaves… I love meat! Maybe if I can just make leaves one of the main veggies on my plate every time I eat, and I cut down on the serving size of my meat course, that will be a step in the right direction?

After reading In Defense of Food, I ran down to the grocery store and came home with a bunch of red kale, a bundle of watercress, and a box of baby spinach and arugula. I found some simple recipes, and the kale and watercress were delicious. Tonight we start in on the box of mixed greens. I was so surprised to learn that green leaves are good sources of omega-3… a fat?!  Better yet, I learned that although omega-3 may be really good for us, it’s not the whole story – there are likely interactions with other unknowns in the leaves that account for their effectiveness in regulating our good health. So I’ll try to stay away from supplements and focus on eating real food instead.

It all makes sense, especially the way you explain it. Foods are such complex biochemical systems that it’s no wonder scientists are still straightening it all out.  Going back to eating like our parents and grandparents did, as you suggest, definitely means getting back into the kitchen… and spending more time at the table with our families. I like that idea. Let’s put culture back into agriculture and tradition back into family life.

I hope I’m not one of those people you warn us about, Michael, obsessing over healthy eating!  Just point me toward real foods that keep me healthy and let me indulge my love of eating for pleasure. From the information you’ve given us in your book, thank you for doing just that. So well researched and simply written, In Defense of Food is an asset for anyone concerned with eating a balanced diet. Check it out at the library today.

Mood foods… What’s yours?

Roast turkey cheers us up for the holidays!

Which foods do you turn to when you need cheering up? Donuts, maybe? Better think again. Scientists say no play time along with too many sweets can leave a kid feeling pretty low.

But wait… There are some foods that can actually make you feel better when you’re down. And I’m not talking medicine here. Sweet potatoes for one. They have a mineral that helps fight the blues. Same with apple juice. And dates!

Dark green veggies have another mineral that works with oxygen to help calm your breathing and heartbeat.

And meat is made up of molecules that turn on your happiness centers!

Cook Up A Story has a whole chapter devoted to mood foods. Isn’t it amazing? Eat a bunch of fruits, veggies and protein and see how your moods improve.

From the super to the just plain silly

Just finished thumbing through two recent books from the library. Both are on cooking for children. Thumbs up on one, and as for the other, I’m still shaking my head.

OK, I’ll get  the silliness over with first—How to cook children, a grisly recipe book. The drawings are fabulous, full of fun. And the words are completely wacky, with lots of  twists. But the recipes…  It’s the main ingredient that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Children! That’s just… I know, it’s all tongue in cheek. And it’s pretty clever. But kids (and moms) could be plain scared at the thought of popping tender kiddies into the pot, like they were plucked chickens or something.  But if you think you can handle that, go for it! It’s silly FUN!

Cooking with children is another matter. It has a serious, old-fashioned feel about it. It was published in 1995. But it’s full of really great tips for teaching kids 7 and older exactly how to cook. So if you’re a kid and you get the urge to start cooking, or if you’re an adult with a kid who maybe wants to learn to cook, I say get your hands on this one. It starts off right—with healthy salads… even has tips for great vinaigrette! How can you go wrong? Detailed instructions for soup, hamburgers, tea biscuits, and fruit cups, among other healthy basics, make this a wonderful resource for kids just getting tuned into cooking. So if you feel turned on to kitchen fun from reading Cook Up a Story, then let’s get cooking… with this good recipe book for kids as a starter course!